The Blame Game

The other day I was doing dishes and thinking about the 75 million steps in life I have taken to bring the Fibro dragon down. I remembered the scared frightened girl who got sick with something nobody knew much about. I thought about the years of misery, just plain misery, I endured as I searched for the steps to reduce the impact Fibromyalgia had on my life. And then I started laughing. Because I remembered that scared frightened girl had a lot of anger, and a fair amount was directed at my parents. They didn't do anything wrong to deserve it per say, but I still shot blame at them. If Fibromyalgia is genetic or the result of an overdriven personality it was their fault I got sick, not mine. I mean they made me and they raise me so why wouldn't it be? While my bank accounts fell deeper into the red and my anger became larger than itself I decided they should pay my medical bills because they had done something, albeit unwittingly, to cause this horrible illness to invade my life. It wasn't my fault, it was theirs.

Flash forward five years and that thought pattern is precisely why I was standing in my kitchen laughing my head off. Boy you sure have grown up, I thought to myself. Because in the years between blaming the world and getting Fibromyalgia to a manageable place I did precisely that, grew up. It's what allowed me to get control of my life, educate myself and figure out what was going on inside my body. Take action and seek success no matter the sacrifice. Insist on results regardless of how much hard work it took. Oh yes I wanted to give up many times. Still do, on any given day depending on how that day happens to be going. But now the thought of crediting my parents for my problems and expecting them to fix them seems simply preposterous.

Ultimately taking full responsibility for my circumstances, no matter the source or cause, is what's allowed me to prevail and keep going. And still to this day as challenges arise it is picking up that bag of blame and hurling it as far away as possible that forces forward progress. Who on earth cares who's fault it is? What matters is what I do with the difficulties that land in my lap. I can find plenty of people to blame everything on, but what good is that? For me it only incites panic and bitterness. No, I much prefer to take control and deal with things on my terms as I see fit. Life is never short of challenges. From the perspective I have today I believe they are part of what keep us growing, improving and thriving in life. It took serious health problems of epic proportions to break me down and build me back up to this point of view, though. That and the values instilled in me by my parents.

Thanks for joining,

Leah